October 14, 2024: I am back in Minneapolis after an unusual trip to Florida which involved rebooking travel for a family of 5 into a different city at the last minute.
That trip provided a lot of lessons about how to handle travel when things go wrong… and will result in some upcoming content about my experiences with trip delay protection and trip cancellation and interruption insurance. But it also showed me how booking rental cars through Capital One Travel isn’t the great deal that it seems.
Here’s why I’m probably not booking rental cars through Capital One Travel in the future.
Why book cars with Capital One Travel: Decent rates and points galore!
While I’ve seen others complain about the rates you’ll find with Capital One Travel, my experience is that I’ve been able to find competitive rates on rental cars about 50% of the time. When I’m renting cars, I’m comparing rates across the bank portals from Chase and Capital One, along with whatever Autoslash can find.
Typically, I’ll rent the car with the best rate in the class of car that I need, with a slight preference toward the major car rental companies. (I’ll pay a few dollars more to rent from Avis than Fox.)
All other things equal, I prefer to rent through a bank portal. In theory, car rentals through bank portals give you the best of both worlds: If you put in your car rental loyalty number, perks of any car rental loyalty program status you carry get honored, plus you’ll get points in both your car rental loyalty program and from your credit card.
But there is a downside to renting from Capital One Travel.
Normal rental car cancellation policy: No show, no pay.
When you rent directly from a car rental company, or through most online travel agencies, you typically have two options:
- A non-refundable, prepaid rate that is usually a few dollars cheaper.
- A cancelable rate that you pay for when you pick up the vehicle.
If you book a cancelable rate that you pay for when you pick up your car, if you don’t pick up your car, you never get charged. (I try to cancel reservations I don’t intend to use, but I’ll admit to making a few speculative car reservations while shopping for a better price.) This has been the standard practice in the rental car industry for as far back as I can remember.
And this practice (you don’t pick up your car, you don’t pay) also applies to similar bookings made through online travel agencies like Orbitz, Expedia, Travelocity, and Priceline.
But Capital One Travel’s cancellation policies are different.
Capital One Travel: Cancel before pick-up or lose your money
Capital One Travel offers both non-refundable, non-cancelable rates and cancelable rates. But unlike other online travel agencies or the rental companies’ websites, the cancelable rates are pre-paid rates the require you to cancel before a cancellation deadline.
If you don’t show up to pick up your rental, it won’t automatically be cancelled. You’ll simply forfeit what you paid if you don’t cancel by the deadline. This could come as an unpleasant surprise if you’re used to renting cars through other channels.
My experience: Hertz 2-day cancellation policy in Orlando
I had planned to travel to Orlando the weekend after Hurricane Milton hit. Long story short, my travel didn’t go according to plan. My family and I ended up getting rerouted to Jacksonville, Florida, which meant that we wouldn’t be able to pick up our rental car as planned.
After getting everyone to our airport hotel in Jacksonville, I opened my laptop to re-work all of the rest of our travel plans. To my surprised, I found out that the “cancelable” rate that I booked with Hertz had to be canceled 2 days before arrival and wouldn’t be refunded under any circumstance. Capital One Travel informed me that they offered no exceptions even though the Orlando airport was closed by the FAA during our scheduled pick up time.
Fortunately, Hertz was willing to honor the reservation the next day, so we did a cheap one-way rental to get from Jacksonville to Orlando and swapped cars at the airport… but that was a lot more hassle than it needed to be. And it was more expensive than simply renting one car for the whole weekend.
What I learned: Being able to walk on a car rental is valuable.
Going forward, I don’t think that I’ll be using Capital One Travel to rent cars. Maybe if I’m standing at the airport or needing a rental car imminently. But if there’s any chance that my plans will change, it’s probably more hassle than it’s worth.
Airlines don’t guarantee that they will transport you to your destination on-time (or, really at all if they choose to cancel the flight). After my experience, I understand the value of being able to simply not show up and walk on a rental car reservation if I need to.
Bottom line: Think twice before booking car rentals through Capital One Travel.
If you choose to book car rentals through Capital One Travel, be aware that the cancellation policies differ from the cancellation policies you may be used to when booking direct, through a travel agency, or through popular online travel agencies. All of Capital One Travel’s rental car bookings are pre-paid and you’ll need to cancel by the cancellation deadline to get a refund.
